Tell 'em Scotland's Free!

Last Saturday I saw the adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. If you don't feel like reading the rest of this, here's my two word review -- IT ROCKED!

This movie was good for so many reasons and I will now recount some of them. The movie's brilliance lies in the music, the stylistic use of framing and color manipulation, the battle sequences and use of slow motion within them. The story is good, too.

What I won't do is go into a diatribe about the supposed politically allegorical nature of the film. It's being argued that the Spartans represent the U.S., while others say the Persians are the U.S. I thought about this during the film a bit and decided that the case could be made for either perspective (depending on if you are for U.S. policy now or against it), but I don't think that's the point of the film. People can make of it what they want. I do think one perspective is more realistic, if you're going to force either argument, but I think that doing so detracts from the movie. I've also read a few things about supposed racism in the film. Whatever, people look for stuff to complain about and see what they want.

I won't go on about plot because you should see this movie for yourself. Basically, it's the story of Sparta's war with the Persian King Xerxes. I have no idea how historically accurate it is -- I'm guessing not so much other than the basic premise of the battle. I do know that the information presented about how they train young boys is accurate -- I watched a documentary about the subject last week. I'm pretty sure that Xerxes didn't alter mutated humans to look like Ginsu knives. However, the story reminded me of a more exciting and more engaging Braveheart, which is saying a lot because Braveheart is one good movie.

From the first five minutes I was hooked. The narration kicks in and the music pumps through the theater. The music is used effectively throughout the movie as a mood inducing tool. Many movies do this -- most notably perhaps are horror movies, but other films use music to raise the heart rate, create a juxtaposition, or calm the nerves (i.e., Halloween, Friday the 13th, Jaws, Psycho, American Psycho, Apocalypse Now, & Fight Club to name several). The music in 300 is used to pump up the audience for the battle sequences and to reinforce the amazing visuals one sees again and again in the film.

The direction by Zack Snyder is well done. He frames shots brilliantly and uses CGI effectively. There are a lot of blue screen shots in the film, but it doesn't look cartoony like the prequel train wreck that George Lucas created. There are many shots with otherworldy qualities to them, but I'm guessing it was done on purpose. After seeing the trailers, I wondered if the color shifts used would be annoying. I wondered the same thing about Sin City, but for the most part thought the weird color play worked well. In 300, it works even better. There aren't any scenes that are too colorized, like in City. The whites, yellows, reds, and blues worked well together and created separate spaces for each type of scene. The Spartans in yellows and reds and the Persians in blues. The scenes in Sparta shot in clean whites. Nice touches, all.

The battles were choreographed expertly. The hectic cyclones of hand to hand combat interspersed with slow-motion shots of death blows and athletic feats make for some of the best fight scenes I've seen. Snyder doesn't overdo the slow-motion, so when you actually get a shot with slow-mo in it, you relish the experience. It's the icing on the already very yummy Cake of Violence. Yeah, that's right -- Cake of Violence. The spattering comic-book blood actually fits well with the tone and visuals of the film. You don't end up thinking about how blood doesn't really spatter like that. You are too involved in the movie, lost in the story, to care.

Random stuff: The actors played their parts well. Gerard Butler (who was also in Reign of Fire, I might add) plays King Leonidas convincingly. A few times I wondered about his sort-of accent, but I it didn't really cause problems for the movie. The soldiers don't wear armor in battle, but I'm betting this is so the audience can see the pro-wrestler like physiques of the Spartans. Those dudes are HUGE. And I envy Leonidas's beard. It was fantastic and pointy. There are quotable lines a-plenty, too. I won't spoil any of them by quoting them here. There are very few movies that I want to see more than once in the theater, but 300 is now one of them. I will even wager that it will be listed as one of my favorite movies in the future. It glorifies war and dying for country, family, and honor, but the movie is good enough that even if you are staunchly against war or think dying for state is worthless, you should be able to suspend reality enough to enjoy it. Unless you are a humorless, way too serious type that has a stick up your bajingo.

I realize that this is written like a high school essay, and a bad one at that, but it gets the point across without me going on and on and being all pretentious about it.

posted by Russell @ 11:11 AM Comments : 8